She’s back…

Controversial former politician Pauline Hanson will attempt to win a seat in the Queensland parliament at the March 21 state election. Ms Hanson confirmed today that she will again make a tilt at a parliamentary career, but declined to confirm where she will stand.

“I will be standing,” she said. “I’m sorry that I’m quite evasive about this at the moment, but there’s a lot happening and I just can’t say too much.”

…and she’s going to make a killing:

Registered political parties may claim reimbursement of election campaign costs, up to the level of their entitlement, in respect of those of their endorsed candidates who gained at least 4 per cent of the formal first preference vote in the electorate contested. The entitlement is calculated by multiplying the total of eligible votes received by the election funding rate indexed annually (currently $1.54737 for 2008/9).

In 2004, when she made a half-arsed run at the federal Senate, Paauuuline sucked almost $190,000 of sweet mother’s milk from the taxpayer teat. In 2007  it was almost $213,000. These most-recent funds were paid to her United Australia Party (a mum-and-dad operation, run from a one-room office at the rear of Dr TingTong’s boarding house in lower Ipswich) – however Paauuuline whipped it out of the party’s bank accounts before you could say “xenophobia”. Don’t dare question her though: she gets really cross and shows you ’rithmetic and fancy tables and stuff.

Hanson is virtually unelectable now, however there remains, especially in Queensland, a small cohort of loopy tin hat-wearing housewives, pensioners and rugby league supporters  - and probably a few blogers (sic) – who are still silly enough to vote for her. It’s potentially possible for her to run in state and federal elections for the next decade or more and clear a couple of million from the AEC’s swag. Something must be done, even if it is slightly undemocratic, to stop this idiotic bigot cashing in on her fading celebrity.

What’s the worst bit of this video produced by Australia’s equivalent of the British National Party, the Australian Protectionist Party?

• The Fred and Sharon-esque production values;
• The Prodos-esque midi music; or
• The hideous messages of hate and intolerance?

I’ll tell you what’s the funniest bit, though — it’s when the APP muppet in the Q&A audience tells Bob Brown that Islam is not a race so being anti-Islam is not racist, but then in the same breath tells Brown that “in Islam” he’d be hung. (I’ve looked on Google Earth and I can’t find “Islam”.) Even funnier is that the rabidly anti-homosexual APP call themselves a “credible alternative” to “rainbow extremists”, so Brown being hung in the country of Islam would probably be celebrated at APP headquarters with a round of watermelon Bacardi Breezers.

Remember the charming bigot whose letter in mX the other day got so many GrodsReaders’ blood boiling? Well imagine my surprise when I was on the train last night on the way to GroupthinkFC’s latest courageous defeat and I saw this.

I was scratching my head about who this pen-wielding GrodsReader might be until I got to soccer and Jeremy was grinning from ear to ear.

So now we must turn our attention to Olivia of Camberwell who wrote this.

DOWN WITH PC NONSENSE

Good on Steve. It takes guts to say something that might offend a minority. We are an English-speaking country — to get a citizenship you should be able to speak our language.

Have at it, GrodsReaders.